In the early hours of a June morning in 2019, the life of 25-year-old Nicholas Damon Decker, a male college student from Owensboro, Kentucky, was tragically cut short. On June 9, 2019, Owensboro Police responded to a call of a shooting at a residence on West 9th Street. Upon arrival, they discovered Decker in the entryway of his home, the victim of a single gunshot wound.
Despite efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation into Decker's death quickly revealed it was a homicide that occurred during a burglary and robbery. Security cameras at Decker's home captured footage of two men breaking into the residence. This footage, along with a crucial piece of physical evidence, a fingerprint left at the scene, would prove vital to the investigation. The evidence led police to identify 42-year-old Cortemius Martez Peoples of Bowling Green, Kentucky, as a primary suspect. Investigators believe that Peoples and Decker were acquainted prior to the fatal encounter.
Within a week of the shooting, Cortemius Martez Peoples was arrested and faced a series of serious charges, including murder, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon. Initially, Peoples pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. However, in May of 2020, he changed his plea to guilty on the charges of murder, robbery, and burglary. As part of a plea agreement that Decker's family supported, Peoples was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Due to the violent nature of the offenses, he will be required to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence, equating to a minimum of 20 years, before being eligible for parole.
While the conviction of Cortemius Martez Peoples brought a degree of resolution to the case, the story of what happened that night remains partially untold. The surveillance footage clearly showed a second individual involved in the break-in and robbery that led to Nicholas Decker's death. As of the time of Peoples' conviction, this second suspect had not been publicly identified, and law enforcement officials confirmed that they were still actively seeking to determine their identity. Information regarding any subsequent identification or arrest of this second individual has not been made available in the years that have followed.
